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| Relatives of missing children watch as more skeletons are recovered from a ditch [AFP] |
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Two suspected serial killers arrested near New Delhi may have murdered at least 15 children, based on skeletal remains found, the Indian police have said.
"Fifteen skulls have been recovered," police official R K S Rathore said on Saturday. "But the search is still going on."
The murders, which came to light on Friday in Noida, a satellite city of New Delhi and a hub for global software giants, were front-page news in Indian newspapers.
As many as 40 children have disappeared in the area over the past two years, media reports said.
Paedophile
Rathore told reporters that a domestic helper charged with rape, murder and concealment appeared to be a "mentally ill" man who confessed to police he had lured and killed six children with sweets and toys.
"He says he kidnapped the children for sex," Rathore said.
The servant's businessman employer ,who sells earth-moving equipment, was also later arrested in connection with the discovery.
The employer was also charged with rape, murder and concealment, Rathore said.
News reports said the victims, the children of labourers living in shanty clusters near the house where the arrested men lived, had been sexually abused.
Ten of the 15 victims so far discovered had been identified by their parents, the police official said.
The victims were aged between six and 12.
As news of the discovery of the children's remains spread, hundreds of relatives gathered outside the building, some waving photographs of their missing sons and daughters.
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